Despite being a disgraced former president reduced to ranting at strangers in resorts in which he now lives, Donald Trump continues to lord over the Republican party. Highers-up still jet down to Mar-A-Lago to kiss his ring; lawmakers being federally investigated over ties to sex trafficking rings still sing his praises. Then there are all those MAGA-fied candidates — cut-rate imitators fighting for his endorsement. But one is perhaps too out-there even for Donald Trump.
As per The Daily Beast, that person is Josh Mandel, a Rand Paul-approved candidate gunning for the Ohio Senate seat soon to be vacated by departing Republican Rob Portman. It’s a crowded race and Mandel — a former representative and state treasurer who BoingBoing dubbed “the most idiotic robot running for Senate in Ohio” — was once the frontrunner. But Trump has wavered on whether or not to formally give him his blessing, in part because people opposed to Mandel keep feeding him dodgy rumors about his “f*cking weird” sex life.
Sources tell The Daily Beast that Trump, a lover of gossip, has “privately regurgitated, often in disgust, a wide range of unverified, often completely unvetted, and lurid rumors about the MAGA candidate.” One source told the publication that Trump “has used the term ‘f*cking weird’ to describe Josh Mandel more than once,” and that he “has talked about [Mandel] and sex in the same sentence more times than I would have liked to hear.” (Reminder, by the way, that Trump has also been credibly accused of sexual misconduct by over two dozen women.)
Details about what those rumors are remain unknown, but it’s not just Mandel’s allegedly salacious sex life that have turned Trump off:
Mandel doesn’t have the right “visuals” or “look,” and could come off poorly on TV. Having met with and talked to Mandel, Trump felt there was just something about Mandel and his personality that rubbed him the wrong way. Also, the former president and current leader of the Republican Party has sensed a conspicuous dearth of “charisma” coming from this particular GOP Senate hopeful.
Still, Trump is known for his unpredictable changes of heart. There are still four months left before the Ohio primary, so who knows if he’ll go with one of the other many Trumpist hopefuls, or if he’ll suddenly decide those questionable rumors about Mandel are actually a plus.
(Via The Daily Beast)